Reviews of anything and everything worth watching on TV or reading in books...

Thursday, 26 July 2012

Night Shift Part One

Night Shift is one
of those Stephen King books that I have very, very fond memories of
acquiring. Whilst I’ve always loved his
writing, and grabbed his material with both hands whenever possible, this
particular collection, and his novel Duma
Key, are two which I will always hold in fond memory. They were each purchased whilst I travelled
Europe with my partner – a passage around Europe which began with a clapped-out
camper van and ended with us both in a tent for the 3 months we travelled due
to engine troubles. Whilst in Amsterdam,
only the second stop of our journey, I had already devoured two-thirds of the
books I had taken with us (just over a week in) and so I was delighted to
discover in a service station not only a Stephen King book, but one which I had
never even heard of – it was a new release, and so there was no hype about
it. This was Duma Key. And it went down
in solid chunks, read within a day and a half of buying it, with the ferocity
with which I usually approach King’s new material.

My second purchase, and the only other of that holiday, was Night Shift, a collection of short
stories which, somehow, I had never stumbled across before. This was in the south of Spain, nearing the
end of our journey – I had already been reduced to reading The Stand for the third time in those three months as I had nothing
new to approach – my supply of Terry Pratchett, James Herbert and, of course,
Stephen King, had dried up, so I was resorting to reading and rereading the
same old things. Oddly enough, in
Europe, whilst they have an impressive number of literary releases, very few of
them are in English. I was screwed –
marooned in foreign lands with nothing fresh to read. So when we stumbled across this campsite, a
veritable village in its own right, utterly self-sufficient with shops, bars
and restaurants, I hit a goldmine – there, peeking between tattered copies of Mills
and Boone semi-porno novels and tatty classics like Dracula and Frankenstein,
it stood, begging for me to absorb it into my consciousness. And I did.
My god, how I absorbed it.
Because I knew this book! I had
never read it before, but most of the stories had already been burnt into my
cerebrum, through gossip with other fans and through film. A huge number of these stories have been put
onto film – short stories adapted by the master himself. Three of them were instantly recognisable
because of other works I knew – two were a prologue and epilogue of sorts to ‘Salem’s Lot, and one was linked to my
most-thumbed King edition, The Stand.

But I get ahead of myself.

My intention is to look at each of these gems, in turn,
starting with Jerusalem’s Lot, the
first of the collection. As we can tell
from the title, the plot of this little gem is closely linked the third novel
released, and officially the last King title if we discount the ‘Bachman’-penned
Rage.
A prequel of sorts, it tells the story of Charles Boone, our narrator,
and his discovery of dark rituals and mysterious goings-on in the town of the
title. Told in an epistolary format,
addressed to “Bones”, we follow the discovery of vampires and a worm from the
18th century which has enveloped the town in a shroud of death and
pestilence. This story works as an
effective prequel specifically to any that have read ‘Salem’s Lot, but works as a stand-alone tale of fear too. The endnote of the story is particularly
haunting, as we discover that Boone is not the last of his line, and as such the
misdemeanours of his family are set to be repeated further down the line. The narrative flows like a HP Lovecraft
wonder, rich in intrigue and striking a perfect balance between language and mood.

Graveyard Shift is
one of those darkly sardonic little gems which you can’t help but love. Whilst the characterisation is a little
scant, and motives are left mostly uncovered, it doesn’t affect the piece at
all, with a snappy pace. In the end,
though, the motive is irrelevant – it’s a dark tale of a man pushed by senior
management to commit what turns out to be his undoing. He is desperate to prove his worth, no matter
the cost. Unlike Rage before it, though, we do actually side with Hall – Warwick is
a despicable man, a typical middle-management type with a bee in his bonnet, and
an understandable loathing of rats and bats – “gah!” Some nice touches
from this story include Wiskonsky’s “sour prophecy ‘Somebody’ll get hurt’”. Also, the Orange Crush Thermometer which
reappears later. As I have said in
earlier blogs, for King, it is these touches which make him a cut above the
other writers of the genre – we are, as an audience, asked to make
connections. When locations are
mentioned in brief passing, we must remember where we’ve heard the name before.

Night Surf served
as the inspiration for The Stand¸ and
tells of an evening for a group of late-teens who have hightailed to the beach
to get away from A6, a virus killing off the population in droves – also known
as Captain Trips – which seems like “flu – he’s all swelled up”. It works almost as a coming-of-age story,
like those of The Body, but with a
particularly morbid twist – the discovery of a man stricken with the illness is
pulled from his car and the group set fire to him, offering a sacrifice. As our narrator and his pal discuss it,
Needles shrugs about the agony suffered by the man as he dies – “Doesn’t matter”. The bitter realisation that they are not
immune, despite their earlier thoughts that having had A2 meant they wouldn’t
catch it because one of their own has the tell-tale signs is dreadful,
imagining themselves as the last people on Earth, but that the world will
continue to spin anyway, the tide will continue to lap the beach as the corpses
all pile up.

I am the Doorway
is a beautifully crafter little sci-fi shocker, as an invalid astronaut returned
to Earth realises with growing horror that after five years, his body has been
harbouring an alien intelligence that is growing through his skin and
committing atrocities. One of King’s
trademarks is the way in which he copes with the evil inside a man – whether psychological
or, in this case, physically reaching through the charade of our human
mask. We, as humans, are all capable of
evil acts, but we, for the most part, manage to hold it together, and choke
down that evil. Here, though, it is
Arthur’s very inability to contain it, to defend himself from it, which is most
startling. As a first person narrative,
we are recounted the events as he remembers them, including the death of his
friend and the murder of a young nameless boy, and his subsequent removal of
the eyes growing through his hands by soaking them in kerosene and burning them
off, leading to their replacement with hooks.
Now, though – and this is the truly horrifying part – seven years later,
the eyes are growing again, this time in a perfect circle through his
chest... He hasn’t stopped whatever
force it is, and there is no telling that he ever will, even in his suggested
suicide as the story comes to a close.

The next story in the collection, The Mangler, is typically Kingsian in tone – a possessed machine,
much like the Buick 8 and Christine
from later stories, is hungry for blood.
The fear of the ordinary, and the trusted, is the central creepy premise
to this. An inanimate object, a clothing
flat-press in a laundry, has caused a number of accidents, the first involving
the blood of a virgin, which has sated its taste for blood and led to it
wanting more. My only issue with this is
Jackson, the English teacher who is a friend to John Hunton, the central
character. As always the English teacher
in King’s work is well-educated, but here, the knowledge all seems a little too
forced. Unlike Matt Burke in ‘Salem’s Lot, who we witness educating
himself in the more specialised areas of fiction and folklore from a hospital
bed, here Jackson can knock off any number of causes and signs of demonic
possession all too readily. Whilst it is
clearly an issue irresolvable in short story, this is one which would perhaps
have been better suited to a longer piece in one of King’s specialised
collections like Four After Midnight
or Different Seasons. Given greater pagination, it is a plot
which could have enthralled and mystified, but sadly here it all seems a little
too rushed. It is great – just not the
best of the bunch.

Also a weak point of the collection, The Boogeyman is principally about a man dealing with his own
skeletons in the closet, following the deaths of his three children, and his
own responsibilities for them. Lester
Billings is not a particularly pleasant man – he lies on a psychiatrist’s couch
before professing to the murder of his children – “All I did was kill my
kids. One at a time. All of them.”
He is a typical man of his time, and his loathing of “sissies” and “niggers”
is unnerving, but it does ring true with the setting of the book – indeed, in
many of his novels, including ‘Salem’s
Lot, homophobia is commonplace in small-town America. Billings has had ideas drummed into his head
from his parents and is hard-headed enough to follow them regardless of what
his gut tells him. As such, when the
children beg to be taken from their room due to “the Boogeyman”, he refuses,
and when their bodies are discovered, he notices the cupboard door open “just a
crack”. The story itself is fast-paced,
but my issue comes with the ending – “so nice”.

Grey Matter tells
the tale of Richie Grenadine, a man who, for no understandable reason, has
begun to transform into an amorphous grey blob, and the men from a local bar
that must go to face this monster. Told
from first person narrative, Henry the bar owner recounts Grenadine’s son Timmy’s
story as they approach his apartment.
What makes this short story so effective is the slow burn of information
– as the three get closer and closer to the house, the story becomes even more
obscene – “a dead cat, all swole up and stiff... with little white things
crawlin’ all over it... then he ate it” – but upon arrival, they must face up
to whatever lies in wait. The appearance
of Richie, as the door bulges outwards before bursting through, is particularly
effective, as is the cliff-hanger at the end “I surely do”. Also, there’s an Orange Crush
thermometer. Just saying.

Battleground is an
oddity of a story, but an entertaining one too – the story of a hit man who
works for The Organisation, returning home to a parcel which contains toy
soldiers, possessed and alive and wanting to fight. Whilst it may feel silly and childish, the
description in this piece is terrific, and as it builds to its shocking
conclusion – “He never knew what hit him” – it rattles along at great
speed. King’s use of language is superb –
before the reveal of the toy soldiers, Renshaw stands on his balcony, “as a
general might survey a captured country”.
The ledge upon which he has to crawl to safety is “no wider than a child’s
train track”. These linguistic tricks
are purposeful, engaging and relatable.
Renshaw considers to see the whole affair as a game even when the
soldiers are attacking – “”I’m losing!”.

Trucks is the
short story which inspired one of King’s best, and silliest, films, “Maximum
Overdrive”. As with The Mangler and Battleground,
it is the ordinary becoming something extraordinary which is the root cause of
this fear. Here, as the title no doubt gives
it away, it is a tale of trucks which have gained a murderous life of their
own. That most trusted of things, our
modes of transport, are fighting back.
The story starts part way through the siege of the gas station, throwing
the reader straight into the action. The
world is ending, and there is little anyone can do about it – the trucks
themselves understand engines, and “frozen uniform joints” but not about the
exhaustion felt by the trapped humans as they are forced to endlessly pump gas
for them, to keep them running, slaves forever.

About Me

Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies.He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong’, and is now going to return to some Classic Doctor Who.